 Chapter 35 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice-Burroughs. This libel box recording is in the public domain. According by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. Eva was still breathing faintly as the sun dropped behind the western hills. Shannon had not left the house all day. She felt that Custer needed her, that they all needed her, however little she can do to mitigate the grief. There was at least a sense of sharing their burden and her fine sensibilities told her that this service of love was quite as essential as the more practical help that she would have been glad to offer had it been within her power. She was standing in the patio with Custer at Sunset, within call of Eva's room, as they had all been during the entire day. When a car drove up along the south drive and stopped at the patio entrance, three of the four men in it alighted in advance toward them. You are Custer Pennington, one of the masts? Pennington nodded. And you are Miss Burke? Miss Shannon Burke? I am. I'm a deputy sheriff. I have a warrant here for your arrest. Arrest, esteemed Custer? For what? He read the warrant to them. They charged them with a murder of Wilson Crone. I'm sorry, Mr. Pennington said the deputy sheriff, but I've been given these warrants and there's nothing for me to do but serve them. You have to take us away now? Can't you wait until my sister is dying in there? Couldn't it be arranged that I could stay here under arrest as long as she lives? The deputy shook his head. It would be all right with me, he said, but I have no authority to let you stay. I'll telephone in though and see what I can do. Where is the telephone? Pennington told him. You two stay here with my men, said the deputy sheriff, while I telephone. He was gone about 15 minutes. When he returned, he shook his head. Nothing doing, he said. I have to bring you both in right away. May I go to her room and see her again before I leave, asked Custer? Yes, said the deputy, but when Custer turned toward his sister's room, the officer accompanied him. Dr. Baldwin and one of the nurses were in the room. Young Pennington came and stood beside the bed, looking down on the white face and the tumbled curls upon the pillow. He could not perceive the slightest indication of life, yet they told him that Eva still lived. He knelt and kissed her and then turned away. He tried to say goodbye to her, but his voice broke and he turned and left the room hurriedly. Colonel and Mrs. Pennington were in the patio with Shannon and the officers. The Colonel and his wife had just learned of this new blow and both of them were stunned. The Colonel seemed to have aged a generation in a single day. He was a tired, hopeless old man. The heart of his boy and that of Shannon Burke went out to him and to the suffering mother, from whom their son was to be taken at this moment in their lives when they needed him most. In their compassion for the older Penningtons, they almost forgot the seriousness of their own situation. At their arraignment next morning, the preliminary hearing was set for the following Friday. Early in the morning, Custer had received word from God on whether Eva still lived, and that Dr. Baldwin now believed they might have some slight hope for her recovery. At Canado, despair and anxiety had told heavily upon the Penningtons. The Colonel felt that he should be in Los Angeles to assist in the defense of his son, and yet he knew that his place was with his wife, whose need of him was even greater. Nor would his heart permit him to leave the daughter whom he worshipped, so long as even a faint spark of life remained in that beloved frame. Mrs. Evans returned from Los Angeles the following day. She was almost prostrated by this last of a series of tragedies ordered. And it seemed by some malignant faint for the wrecking of her happiness. She told him the guy appeared to be hopelessly insane. He did not know his mother, nor did he give the slightest indication of any recollection of his past life, or of the events that had overthrown his reason. At 10 o'clock on Wednesday night, Dr. Baldwin came to the living room, where the Colonel and his wife were sitting with Mrs. Evans. For two days, none of them had been in bed. They were tired and haggard, but not more so than the old doctor, who remained constantly on duty from the moment when he was summoned. Never had man worked with more indefatigable zeal than he to rest the young life from the path of the Green Reaper. There were deep lines beneath his eyes, and his face was pale and drawn, as he entered the room and stood before them. But for the first time in many hours, there was a smile upon his lips. I believe, he said, that we're going to save her. The others were too much affected to speak, so long had hope been denied that now they dared not even think of hope. She regained consciousness a few moments ago. She looked up at me and smiled, then she fell asleep. She's breathing quite naturally now. She must not be disturbed, though. I think it would be well if you all retired. Mrs. Pennington, you certainly must get some sleep, and you too, Mrs. Evans, or I cannot be responsible for the results. I have left work for the night, Urs, to call me immediately, if necessary, and if you will all go to your rooms, I will lie on this over here in the living room. I feel at last that it will be safe for me to leave her in the hands of the nurse, and a little sleep won't hurt me. The colonel took his old friend by the hand. Bald Windy said, it is useless to try to thank you. I couldn't, even if there were words to do it with. You don't have to, Pennington. I think I love her as much as you do. There isn't anyone who knows her who doesn't love her, and who wouldn't have done as much as I. Now get off to bed, all of you, and I think we'll find something to be very happy about by morning. If there's any change for the worse, I'll let you know immediately. In the County Jail in Los Angeles, Custer Pennington and Shannon Burke, awaiting trial on charges of a capital crime, were filled with increasing happiness as the daily reports from Ganano brought word of Ava's steady improvement. Until at last, she was entirely out of danger. The TD's preliminaries of selecting a jury were finally concluded. As witness after witness was called, Pennington came to realize for the first time what a web of circumstantial evidence that the state had fabricated about him. Even from servants whom he knew to be loyal and friendly, the most damaging evidence was elicited. His mother's second maid testified that she had seen him fully dressed in his room late in the evening before the murder, when she had come in, as was her custom, with a pitcher of iced water, not knowing that the young man was there. She had seen him lying upon the bed with his gun on its holster, hanging from the belt about its waist. She also testified that the following morning, when she had come in to make the bed, she had discovered that he had not been slept in. The stableman testified that the Apache had been out the night of the murder. He had rubbed the animal off early in the evening when the defendant had come in from riding. At that time, the two had examined the horseshoes, the animal having just been reshot. He said that on the morning after the murder, there were saddle sweat marks upon the Apache's back, and that the off foreshoe was missing. One of the KKS employees testified that a young man, whom he partially identified as Custer, had ridden into their camp about nine o'clock on the night of the murder, and had inquired concerning the whereabouts of Crumb. He said that the young man seemed excited, and upon being told that Crumb was away, he had ridden off rapidly towards Sycamore Canyon. Added to all this were the damaging evidence of the detective who had found the Apache's off foreshoe under Crumb's body, and the positive identification of the shoe by Allen. The one thing that was lacking, a motive for the crime, was supplied by Allen and the Pennington's houseman. The latter testified that among his other duties was the care of the hot water heater in the basement of the Pennington home. Upon the evening of Saturday, August 5th, he had forgotten to shut off the burner, as was his custom. He had returned about nine o'clock to do so. When he left the house by the passageway leading from the basement, beneath the south drive, and the opening of the hillside just above the water gardens, he had seen a man standing by the upper pool, with his arms about a woman whom he was kissing. It was a bright moonlight night, and the houseman had recognized the two as Custer Pennington and Miss Burke. Being embarrassed by having thus accidentally come upon them, he had moved away quietly in the opposite direction, among the shadows of the trees, and had returned to the bunkhouse. The connecting link between this evidence and the motive for the crime was elicited from Allen in half an hour of direct examination, which constituted the most harrowing ordeal that Shannon Burke had ever endured, for it laid bare before the world, and before the man she loved, the sordid history of her life with Wilson Crumb. It portrayed her as a drug addict and a wanton, but, more terribly still, it established a motive for the murder of Crumb by Custer Pennington. Owing to the fact that he had laid in the drunken stupor during the night of the crime, that no one had seen him from the time when the maid entered his room to bring his ice water until his father had found him fully clothed upon his bed at five o'clock the following morning, young Pennington was unable to account for his actions, or to state his whereabouts at the time when the murder was committed. He realized what the effect of the evidence must be upon the minds of the jurors, when he himself was unable to assert positively, even to himself, that he had not left his room that night. Nor was he very anxious to refute the charge against him, since in his heart he believed that Shannon Burke had killed Crumb. He did not even take the stand in his own defense. The evidence against Shannon was less convincing, a motive had been established in Crumb's knowledge of her past life and the maligned influence that he had upon it. The testimony of the camp flunky who had seen her oblitering what evidence the trail might have given in the former hoof prints constituted practically the only direct evidence that was brought against her. It seemed to Custer that the gravest charge that could be justly brought against her was that of an accessory after the fact, provided the jury was convinced of his guilt. Many witnesses testified giving evidence concerning apparent irrelevant subjects. It was brought out, however, that Crumb died from the effects of a wound inflicted by a .45 caliber pistol that Custer Penning possessed such a weapon that at the time of his arrest it had been found in his holster, with his cartridge built, thrown carelessly upon his bed. When Shannon Burke took the stand, all eyes were riveted upon her. They were attracted not only by her youth and beauty, but also by the morbid interest which the frequenters of courtrooms would naturally feel in the disclosure of a life she had led in the Hollywood. Even to the most sophisticated, it appeared incredible that this refined girl, whose soft, well-modulated voice and quiet manner carried a conviction of innate modesty, could be the woman whom Slick Allen's testimony had revealed in such a role of vice and degradation. Allen's eyes were fastened upon her with the same intent and searching expression that had marked his attitude upon the occasion of his last visit to the Vista del Paso bungalow, as if he were trying to recall the identity of some half-forgotten face. Though Shannon gave her evidence in a simple, straightforward manner, it was manifest that she was undergoing an intense, nervous strain. The story that she told, coming as he did out of the clear sky, unguessed either by the prosecution or by the defense, proved a veritable bombshell to them both. It came after it appeared that the last link had been forged in the chain that fixed the guilt upon Cousin Brennan. She had asked then to be permitted to take the stand and tell her story in her own way. I did not see Mr. Crone, she said, from the time I left Hollywood on the 30th of July last year until the afternoon before he was killed, nor had I communicated with him during that time. What Mr. Allen told you about my having been a drug addict was true, but he did not tell you that Crone made me what I was, or that after I came to Canado to live, I overcame the habit. I did not live with Crone as his wife. He used me to peddle narcotics for him. I was afraid of him and did not want to go back to him. When I left, I did not even let him know where I was going. The afternoon before he was killed, I met him accidentally in the patio of Colonel Pennington's home. The Pennington's had no knowledge of my association with Crone. I knew that they wouldn't have tolerated me had they known what I had been. Crone demanded that I should return to him and threaten to expose me if I refused. I knew that he was going to be up in the canyon that night. I rode up there and shot him. The next morning I went back and attempted to obliterate the tracks of my horse, for I learned from Custer Pennington that it is sometimes easy to recognize individual peculiarities in the tracks of a shot horse. That is all, except that Mr. Pennington had no knowledge of what I did and no part of it. Momentarily, her statements seemed to overthrow the state's case against Pennington. But that the district attorney was not convinced of its truth was indicated by his cross-examination of her and other witnesses, and later by calling them a new witness. They could not shake her testimony, but on the other hand, she was unable to prove that she had ever possessed a .45 caliber pistol, or to account for what she had done with it after the crime. During the course of her cross-examination, many apparently unimportant and relevant facts were reduced, among them the name of the middle western town in which she had been born. This trivial bit of testimony was the only point that seemed to make any impression on Allen. Anyone watching him at the moment would have seen a sudden expression of incredulity and consternation overspread his face, the hard lines of which slowly gave place to what might, in another, have suggested a semblance of grief. For several minutes, he sat staring intently at Shannon, then he crossed the side of her attorney and whispered a few words in a lawyer's ear. Receiving an assent to whatever his suggestion might have been, he left the courtroom. On the following day, the defense reduced a new witness in the person of a Japanese who had been a house servant in the bungalow of the Visa del Paso. His testimony substantiated Shannon Burke's statement that she and Crumb had not lived together as men and wife. Then Allen was recalled to the stand. He told that the last eating that he had spent at Crumb's bungalow, and of the fact that Miss Burke, who was then known to him as Goss of Delor, had left the house at the same time he did. He testified that Crumb had asked her why she was going home so early, that she had replied that she wanted to write a letter, that he, Allen, had remarked, I thought you lived here, to which he replied, I'm here all day, but I go home nights. The witness added that his conversation took place in Crumb's presence, and that the director did not in any way deny the truth of the girl's assertion. While Allen should have suddenly espoused her case was a mystery to Shannon, only to be accounted for upon the presumption that if he could lessen the value of that part of her testimony which had indicated the possible motive for the crime, he might thereby strengthen the case against Pennington, toward whom he still fit enmity, and whom he had long ago threatened to get. The district attorney, in his final argument, drew a convincing picture of the crime from the moment when Custer Pennington settled his horse at the stables of Canado. He followed him up to the canyon to the camp in Jackknife, where he had inquired concerning Crumb, and then down to Sycamore again, where, at the mouth of Jackknife, the lights of Crumb's carc would have been visible up the larger canyon. He demonstrated clearly that a man familiar with the hills, and searching for someone whom sentiments of jealousy and revenge were prompting him to destroy, would naturally investigate this automobile light that it was shining, where no automobile should be. That the prisoner had ridden out with the intention of killing Crumb was apparent from the fact that he had carried a pistol in a country where, under ordinary circumstances, there was no necessity for carrying a weapon for self-defense. He vividly portrayed the very incident of the commission of the crime, how Pennington leaned from his saddle and shot Crumb through the heart, the sudden leap of the murderer's horse as he was startled by the report of the pistol, or possibly by the fallen body of a murdered man, and how, in so jumping, he had forged and torn off the shoe that had been found beneath Crumb's body. And, he said, this woman knew that he was going to kill Wilson Crumb. She knew it, and she made no effort to prevent it. On the contrary, as soon as it was light enough, she would directly to the spot where Crumb's body lay, and, as has been conclusively demonstrated by the unimpeachable testimony of an eyewitness, she deliberately sought to expunge all traces of her lover's guilt. He derided Shannon's confession, which he termed an 11th hour effort to save a guilty man from the gallows. If she killed Wilson Crumb, what did she kill him with? He picked up the bullet that had been extracted from Crumb's body. Where is the pistol from which this bullet came? Here it is, gentlemen. He picked up the weapon that had been taken from Custer's room. Compare this bullet with those that were taken from the clip in the handle of this automatic. They are identical. This pistol did not belong to Shannon Burke. It was never in her possession. No pistol of this character was ever in her possession. Had she had one, she could have told where she obtained it and whether it had been sold to her or to another, and the records of the seller would show whether or not she spoke the truth. Feeling to tell us where she procured the weapon, she could at least lead us to a spot where she had disposed of it. She can do neither, and the reason why she cannot is because she never owned a .45 caliber pistol. She never had one in her possession, and therefore, she could not have killed Crumb with one. When at length the case went to the jury, Custer Pennington's conviction seemed a foregone conclusion, while the fate of Shannon Burke was yet in the laps of the gods. The testimony that Allen and the Japanese servant had given in substantiation of Shannon's own statement that her relations with Wilson Crumb had only been those of an accomplice and the disposal of narcotics removed from the consideration of the principal motive that she might have had for killing Crumb. And so there was no great surprise when, several hours later, the jury returned to verdict in accordance with the public opinion of Los Angeles, where, owing to the fact that murder juries are not isolated, such cases are tried largely by the newspapers and the public. They found Custer Pennington Jr. guilty of murder in the first degree, and Shannon Burke not guilty. On the day when Custer was to be sentenced, Colonel Pennington and Shannon Burke were present in the courtroom. Mrs. Pennington had remained at home with Eva, who was still the convalescing. Shannon reached the courtroom before the Colonel. When he arrived, he sat down beside her and placed his hand on hers. Whatever happens, he said, we shall still believe in him, no matter what the evidence, and I do not deny that the jury brought in an just verdict in accordance with it. I know that he is innocent. He told me yesterday that he was innocent, and my boy would not lie to me. He thought that you killed Crumb, Shannon. He overheard the conversation between you and Crumb and the patio that day, and he knew that you had good reason to kill a man. He knows now, as we all know, that you did not. Probably, it must always remain a mystery. He would not tell me he was innocent until after you have been proven so. He loves you very much, my girl. After all that he heard here in court, after what I have been, I thought none of you would ever want to see me again. The Colonel pressed her hand. Whatever happens, he said, you're going back home with me. You tried to give your life for my son. This were not enough. The fact that he loves you and that we love you is enough. Two tears crept down Shannon's cheeks, the first visible sign of emotion that she had manifested during all the long weeks of the ordeal that she had been through. Nothing had so deeply affected her as the magnanimity of the proud old Pennington, whose pride and honor, while she had always admired him, she had regarded it as an indication of a certain puritanical narrowness that could not forgive the transgression of a woman. When the judge announced the sentence and they realized that Custer Pennington was to pay the death penalty, although it had been almost a foregone conclusion, the shock left them numb and cold. Neither the condemned man nor his father gave any outward indication of the effect of the blow. They were Penningtons, and the Pennington pride permitted them to show no weakness before the eyes of strangers. Nor yet was there any bravado in their demeanor. The younger Pennington did not look at his father or Shannon as he was led away toward his cell between two bailiffs. As Shannon Burke walked from the courtroom with the colonel, she could think of nothing but the fact that in two months the man she loved was to be hanged. She tried to formulate plans for his release, wild, quixotic plans, but she could not concentrate her mind upon anything but the bewildered thought that in two months they would hang him by the neck until he was dead. She knew that he was innocent, who then had committed the crime, who had murdered Wilson Crumb. Outside the Hall of Justice she was accosted by Allen, whom she attempted to pass without noticing. The colonel turned angrily on the man. He was in the mood to commit murder himself, but Allen forestalled any outbreak on the old man's part by a pacific gesture of his hands and a quick uphill to Shannon. Just a moment please, he said. I know you think I had a lot to do with Pennington's conviction. I want to help you now. I can't tell you why. I don't believe he was guilty. I changed my mind recently. If I can see you alone, Miss Burke, I can tell you something that might give you a line to the guilty party. Under no conceivable circumstances can you see Miss Burke alone snap the colonel. I'm not going to hurt her, said Allen. Just let her talk to me here alone on the sidewalk, or no one can overhear. Yes, said the girl, who could see no opportunity pass which held the slightest ray of hope for Custer. The colonel walked away, but turned and kept his eyes on the man when he was out of earshot. Allen spoke hardly to the girl for 10 or 15 minutes, and then turned and left her. When she returned to the colonel, the latter did not question her. When she did not offer to confide in him, he knew that she must have good reason for her reticence, since he realized that her sole interest lay in aiding Custer. For the next two months, the colonel divided his time between Donato and San Francisco, that he might be near San Quentin, where Custer was held pending the day of execution. Business Pennington, broken in health by the succession of blows that she had sustained, was sorely in need of his companionship and help. Eva was rapidly regaining her strength and some measure of her spirit. She had begun to realize how useless and foolish her attempt at self-destruction had been, and to see that the braver and noble course would have been to give Guy the benefit of remoral support in his time of need. The colonel, who had wormed from Custer the full story of his conviction upon the liquor charge, was able to convince her that Guy had not played at this honorable part, and that of the two he had suffered more than Custer. Her father did not condone or excuse Guy's wrongdoing, but he tried to make her understand that it was no indication of a criminal inclination, but rather the thoughtless act of an undeveloped boy. During the two months they saw little or nothing of Shannon. She remained in Los Angeles, and when she made the long trip to San Quentin to see Custer, or when they chance to see her, they could not but note how thin and drawn she was becoming. The roses had left her cheeks, and there were deep lines beneath her eyes, in which they were constantly an expression of haunting fear. As the day of the execution drew nearer, the gloom that had hovered over Ganado for months settled like a dense pall upon them. On the day before the execution, the colonel left for San Francisco to say goodbye to his son for the last time. Custer had insisted that his mother and Eva must not come, and they acceded to his wish. On the afternoon when the colonel arrived at San Quentin, he was permitted to see his son for the last time. The two conversed in low tones. Custer asking questions about his mother and sister, and about the little everyday activities of the ranch. Neither of them referred to the event of the following morning. Has Shannon been here today? The colonel asked. Custer shook his head. I haven't seen her this week, he said. I suppose she dreaded coming. I don't blame her. I should like to have seen her once more, though. Presently, they stood in silence for several moments. You better go, dads, of the boy. Go back to mother and Eva. Don't take it too hard. It wasn't so bad after all. I have led a bully life. I have never forgotten once that I am a Pennington. I shall not forget it tomorrow. The father could not speak. They clasped hands once. The older man turned away, and the guards led Custer back to the death cell for the last time. End of Chapter 36. Chapter 37 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This live box recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. It was morning when the colonel reached the ranch. He found his wife and Eva sitting in Custer's room. They knew the hour, and they were waiting there to be as near him as they could. They were weeping quietly. In the kitchen across the patio, they can hear Hannah sobbing. They sat there for a long time in silence. Suddenly, they heard a door slam in the patio, in the sound of someone running. Colonel Pennington, Colonel Pennington, a voice cried. The colonel stepped to the door of Custer's room. It was the bookkeeper calling him. What is it, he asked? Here I am. The governor has granted a stay of execution. There is new evidence. Ms. Berger's on her way here now. She has found the man who killed Crumb. What more he said the colonel did not hear, for he had turned back into the room and, collapsing on his son's bed, had broken into tears. He had gone through these long weeks like a man of iron. It was nearly noon before Shannon arrived. She had been driven from Los Angeles by an attaché of the district attorney's office. The Pennington had been standing on the east porch, watching the road with binoculars, so anxious worthy for confirmation of their hopes. She was out of the car before it had stopped and was running toward them. The man who had accompanied her followed and joined them on the porch. Shannon threw her arms around Mrs. Pennington's neck. He is safe, she cried. Another has confessed and has satisfied the district attorney of his guilt. Who was it, they asked? Shannon turned towards Eva. It is going to be another blow to you all, she said, but wait until I am through and you will understand that it would not have been otherwise. It was Guy who killed Wilson Crumb. Guy? Why should he have done it? That was it. That was why suspicion never directed toward him. Only he knew the facts that prompted him to commit the deed. It was Allen who suggested to me the possibility that it might have been Guy. I spent nearly two months at the sanatorium with this gentleman from the district attorney's office in an effort to awaken Guy's sleeping intellect to a realization of the past and of the present necessity for recalling it. He had been improving steadily, but it was only yesterday that memory returned to him. We worked on the theory that if he made to realize that Eva lived, the cause of his mental sickness could be removed. We tried everything, we had almost given up hope when, almost like a miracle, his memory returned while he was looking at a Kodak picture of Eva that I had shown him. The rest was easy, especially after he knew that she had recovered. Instead of the necessity for confession resulting in further shock, it seemed to inspired him. His one thought was of Custer, his one hope that he would be in time to save him. Why he killed Crumb asked Eva. Because Crumb killed Grace, he told me the whole story yesterday. Very carefully, Shannon related all that Guy had told of Crumb's relations with his sister up to the moment of Grace's death. I am glad he killed him, said Eva. I would have no respect for him if he hadn't done it. Guy told me that the evening before he killed Crumb, he had been looking over a motion picture magazine and he had seen a picture of Crumb which tallied with the photograph he had taken from Grace's dressing table. A portrait of the man who, as she told him, was responsible for her trouble. Guy had never been able to learn his man's identity but the picture in the magazine with his name below it was a reproduction of the same photograph. There was no question as to the man's identity. The scarf pin and a lock of hair falling in a peculiar way over the forehead marked the pictures as identical. Though Guy had never seen Crumb, he knew from conversations that he had heard here that it was Wilson Crumb who was directing the picture that was to be taken on Ganada. He immediately got his pistol, sailed his horse and rode up to the camp in search of Crumb. It was he whom one of the witnesses mistook for Custer. He then did what the district attorney attributed to Custer. He rode to the mouth of Jackknife and saw the lights of Crumb's car up near El Camino Largo. While he was in Jackknife, Eva must have ridden out Sycamore with her meeting with Crumb, passing Jackknife before Guy rode back into Sycamore. He rode up to where Crumb was attempting to crank his engine. Evidently the starter had failed to work, for Crumb was standing in front of the car and the glare of the headlights attempted to crank it. Guy accosted him, charged him with the murder of Grace and shot him. He then started for home by way of El Camino Largo. Half a mile up the trail he dismounted and hit his pistol and belt in a hollow tree, then he rode home. He told me that while he never for an instant regretted his act, he did not sleep all that night and was in a highly nervous condition when the shock of Eva's supposed death unbalanced his mind. Otherwise he would gladly have assumed the guilt of Crumb's death at the time when Custer and I were accosted. After we had obtained Guy's confession, Allen gave us further information tending to prove Custer's innocence. He said he could not give it before without incriminating himself, and as he had no love for Custer, he did not intend to hang for a crime he had not committed. He knew that he would surely hang if he confessed the part he had been played in formulating the evidence against Custer. Crumb had been the means of sending Allen to the county jail after robbing him of several thousand dollars. The day before Crumb was killed, Allen's sentence expired. The first thing he did was a search for Crumb with the intention of killing the man. He learned that the studio where Crumb was and he followed him immediately. He was hanging around the camp out of sight waiting for Crumb when he heard the shot that killed him. His investigation led him to Crumb's body. He was instantly overcome by the fear, induced by his guilty conscience, that the crime would be laid at his door. In casting about for some plan by which he might divert suspicion from himself, he discovered an opportunity to turn against a man whom he hated. The fact that he had been a stable man at Ganado and was familiar with the customs of the ranch made it an easy thing for him to do to ride to the stables, settle the Apache and ride on with the sycamore to Crumb's body. Here he deliberately pulled the off-force shoe from the horse and hid it under Crumb's body. Then he rode back to the stable, unsettled the Apache and made his way to the village. The district attorney said that we need have no fear, but the Custer would be exonerated and free. And Eva, she turned to the girl with a happy smile, I have it very confidentially that there is a small likelihood that any jury in Southern California will convict Guy if he bases his defense upon a plea of insanity. Eva smiled bravely and said, One thing I don't understand, Shannon, is what you were doing brushing the road with a bough from a tree on the morning after the killing of Crumb, if you weren't trying to obliterate someone's tracks. That's just what I was trying to do, said Shannon. Ever since Custer taught me something about tracking, it has held a certain fascination for me so that I often try to interpret the tracks I see along the trails of the hills. It was because of this, I suppose, that I immediately recognized the Apache's tracks around the body of Crumb. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that Custer had killed him, and I did what I could to remove this evidence. As it turned out, my efforts did more harm than good, until Alan's explanation cleared up the matter. And why, asked the colonel, did Alan undergo this sudden change of heart? Shannon turned toward him, her face slightly flushed, though she looked him straight in the eyes as she spoke. It is a hard thing for me to tell you, she said. Alan is a bad man, a very bad man, yet in the worst of man there is a spark of good. Alan told me this morning, in the district attorney's office, what it was that kindled to life the spark of good in him. He is my father. End of Chapter 37 End of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs Recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey